Analects 5.13: 公冶長 (Gongye Chang)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 5 tests judgments of people against their conduct. The Master praises particular abilities and virtues while repeatedly withholding the larger judgment of humaneness. Marriage choices, public service, friendship, speech, and learning supply different kinds of evidence. Several exchanges expose a distance between what someone says or wants and what they can do; Zai Yu’s conduct even changes the Master’s way of judging. Near the end, the teacher and his companions state their own aspirations. The closing sayings turn assessment inward, toward recognizing faults and continuing to love learning.
Analects 5.13
子路有聞、未之能行、唯恐有聞。
When Zilu had heard something and had not yet managed to put it into practice, his one fear was that he would hear something more.
Commentary
ethics Learning creates an obligation to act The repeated 有聞, hearing something, changes force across the sentence. At first it begins a task; before that task is carried out, another lesson becomes something to fear. Zilu treats practice as the condition for taking on further teaching.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high